2012 June 26 — Patchwork Times by Judy Laquidara

Dinner Tonight

June 26, 2012 · by JudyL

Some evenings when the whole day has been spent going at warp speed, it’s nice to have an easy dinner! Tonight was one of those nights.

It started with baking flour tortillas in the little shell makers. I love using these because they don’t to be fried. Corn tortillas can be used too and they get crispier but I prefer the flour tortillas. Ground beef was cooked with taco seasoning. Lettuce was shredded. Cucumbers were peeled and chopped. Tomatoes were peeled and chopped. Black olives were sliced. On the table went sour cream and homemade salsa. I wish I’d had avocados to make guacamole but I didn’t have that so we made do with what we had.

The shells were stuffed full of all the goodies and it was a nice, fairly light, summer dinner.

And then there was a bit of time for knitting . . not much time but if I can get in half an hour each evening, I’m happy.

· Filed Under: Home & Garden · 18 Comments

Mechanic’s Wife Socks

June 26, 2012 · by JudyL

It’s taken me way too long but finally the socks for the mechanic’s wife are finished. It’s pretty . . what’s the word . . not sad, but I guess weird . . that I can make a whole quilt, from choosing the fabric to piecing to quilting to binding . . in one-third the amount of time it took me to make one pair of socks! And what’s even weirder (or . . should that be . . more weird?) is that it doesn’t bother me one bit to send the quilt off to a new home but these socks – out of my beloved Caper sock yarn, I really had a hard time letting them go. I have more yarn and will make myself a pair just like them . . some day.

Today the mechanic’s quilt, along with the socks for his wife, have been mailed. I have not even checked the tracking number but my guess is that it should all get there by Friday. I hope they’ll be pleasantly surprised and I hope they know how thankful I am for what they did for Chad. I sometimes think that people who do such nice things for folks don’t even know how much it’s appreciated or how much it can touch someone. Nice folks just do things like that and never expect anything in return.

· Filed Under: Home & Garden · 6 Comments

Nicole’s Sofa Quilt – Hour #2

June 26, 2012 · by JudyL

Big surprise — today we’ll continue making flying geese using Fabrics 1 and 6. Follow the instructions from yesterday and try to get 30 flying geese done. I’m not rushing you too badly, am I?

· Filed Under: Quilting · 3 Comments

Another Chicken Run

June 26, 2012 · by JudyL

The third chicken run was mostly finished over the weekend and I feel like a huge burden has been lifted.

It was hard to get a good picture but it’s for the original 14 chickens. They had a small temporary run but now they have their permanent run. The temporary run was about 8’ x 12’ and the new run is about 25’ x 35’.

Saturday Vince had put up the poles and the chicken wire and all he needed to do was take down the old fence and tie in the new fence to the walkway that goes into the coop, and then cover the whole thing.

They’re used to being let out of the coop by 6:30 a.m. but Sunday morning we left them in the coop while we finished the run. It was about 9:30 when we finished and let them out. They were getting pretty frustrated at being kept in the coop but when we let them out, they realized right off that something was different and they were not about to come out of the coop.

We came in and had breakfast – eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast with raspberry jelly – and when we were done, we went back out and the chickens were loving their new run.

They flew, and ran, and scratched and chased grasshoppers. I think they love it! We still need to bury some chicken wire around the edges and anchor the bottom of the wire to the ground but for now, they have a bigger run, completely covered and safe.

I’m thinking that this might be the week I get my first egg. I’ve checked the egg boxes a dozen times a day for the past few days. I’ll be so happy to see that first egg!